


Shit Bro, Let's Be Cowboys

by Procrastinaster



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Dave can be a bit of a brat, Dirk is four years older than Dave, Familial Dirk/Dave, Humanstuck, M/M, Possible adult content later on, Ranchstuck, This is just a big excuse for my OTP's, adding tags as I go, hopefully Dirk doesn't sound too pervy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-03-18 05:46:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3558356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Procrastinaster/pseuds/Procrastinaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AKA Ranchstuck!<br/>Dirk encounters Equius Zahhak, a worker for the local Neverland Ranch, as he was passing through town with his younger brother Dave. Like a duckling to its mother, he imprints and is enamored. After their brief encounter, will they meet again? (Hint: yes. Yes they do.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dirk: Stick your foot (or elbow) in it.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first fic here on AO3. I know that's not an excuse for this to suck, but it is a valid reason! ^...^  
> Heh. Heh. Anyway, I hope you enjoy. I do have plans for this, and I'm working on a 'Tag as I go' method, so that there won't be any spoilers. Don't wanna ruin any surprises.

**Dirk: Stick your foot (or elbow) in it.**

You spot him outside of the plane glass café window, standing in the bed of a surprisingly nice indigo blue truck. He’s unloading large, empty crates with wooden slates as thick as your arm, hardly breaking a sweat.

Well, that’s a lie. He’s sweating heavily. On anyone else, you’d find it a massive turn off and boner killer, but for him? Let’s just say the perspiration made his loose, long sleeve cowboy button up that you’d see in any poorly made Western cling to all the right places. Under the fabric you can see the muscles of his arms, moving in perfect synchronousity—

“Dirk.”

—and as he turns around and bends over, you take special note of his extremely fine and toned backside—

“Dirk.”

You wonder if it’s as hard (the twelve year old in you makes you work hard to resist making a boner joke, but then you realize that you’re a Strider, dammit, and you can make all the boner jokes you damn well please, and make it anyway,) as the rest of him. It’s wouldn’t be fair if, on top of being practically a body-builders wet dream, he was also blessed with the plushest of rum—

“BRO.”

You twist your head to glare at your brother from behind your (unparalleled and amazingly cool) pointed shades.

“Any reason for the hopefully ironic impression of the world’s most annoying alarm clock?” You keep your voice steady and even, like you’d been paying attention the entire time and he was being a nuisance for no reason. Dave was unphased, of course. You’d raised him (or, half-raised) him better than that.

He allowed himself a small smirk as he indicated your plate with a quick nod of the head, and leaned back into the worn vinyl booth upholstery. Dave was practically glowing with triumph (or, what equated to being marginally pleased on a non-Strider’s face,) and you gritted your teeth imperceptibly as you became aware of what he meant.

“I know you were making anime eyes at that hunk’a man flesh out there,” he said, referring to the large man who at that moment jumped down from the truck and disappeared into building it was parked in front of, “but elbow in your pancakes? New level of irony, bro.”

Dave was spared at that moment only because:

1) Public strifing resulted in fines that neither of your broke asses had the money for at that point in your respective lives.

2) Even if you had the money or gave a shit about public decency, you’d left your katana in the back of your minivan. (Bought for ironic purposes, complete with ‘Soccer mom’ and ‘MILF’ and ‘baby on board’ stickers. Dave enjoyed the joke as much as you did, only balking at the last one. “Bro I’m twenty years old.” “Doesn’t matter, you’ll always be the little baby I rocked to sleep every night to me.” “Dirk. No. You’re only four years older than—” “Hush my child. Mama’s here.”)

and

3) The perky waitress with the red glasses and overbite had stopped by the table again.

 

(Note to self: Kick Dave’s ass in a strife soon, before he forgets who stayed up until all hours of the night caring for him as a helpless infant. Not you, but still. Kid’s gotta remember his place. Okay fine, so you were itching for a strife. It’d been awhile, and besides, Dave liked them as much as you did. Maybe slightly less, due to the fact that he never won, but it was still good practice.)

 

Her nametag read ‘Jane’. It suited her. With her blue, 50’s waitress uniform surrounding her large frame and a black bouncy bob streaked with more than a few gray hairs, she looked like a ‘Jane’.

“Everything alright here?” She asked cheerfully. “We’ve got some fresh baked goodies in the back if you would like some.” The way that she spoke held an unspoken ‘I made them myself’ pride to it.

You pause momentarily in your efforts to wipe the syrup off of your elbow with the diner napkins long enough to shake your head to decline. “No thanks, we were just heading out, right bro?” You say, standing up. Dave groaned, but rose as well.

“Where are you headed? I mean, if you don’t mind my asking. We don’t get many passerby’s, you know.” Actually, you had no way of knowing this, but you weren’t surprised. “A bit out of the way for most travelers. Hoo hoo!” You note that she sounds more like an eighty year old woman, especially with the way she laughs, when in reality she couldn’t be more than forty. Her plump cheeks betrayed only the honest curiosity of a cheerful individual.

It was quite endearing, really. You  weren’t exactly eager to get back into the AC-less portable metal heater any more than your brother anyway.

“Me and my bro are musical Mozart’s,” Dave explained. “Normally we spread our sicknasty sounds all over Houston, but we got a call for a gig out west, so, like the Justice League, we up and answered that shit. We would have been back home already if someone—”

“Me,” you supply.

“—Had gotten directions.”

“I got us a map, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, a giant paper monster that’s more useful as a napkin than for directions.”

“I wasn’t the one who was holding it upside down for two hundred miles.”

Jane clears her throat, obviously trying to stifle her laughter. “So, long story short,” she dropped her voice conspiratorially, “though I adore long stories, mind, you boys are lost?”

There is a moment of complete silence from the both of you, interrupted only by the sounds of the other patrons. (Of which there are exactly zero.)

As soon as it passed, both you and Dave were shaking your heads in denial.

“No—” “Nope—” “So not lost—” “—know exactly where we’re going—” “—I do, anyway, don’t know about him—”

The paunchy woman just shrugged. “Whatever you say. Highway’s down the road about ten miles that way,” she offered, motioning the direction with her chin as she gathered up the empty nearly empty plates. “But I’m sure you already knew that,” she added over her shoulder as she headed back towards the kitchen.

You raise an eyebrow at Dave, turning to see him wearing a mirrored expression behind his (far less sweet) aviator shades. You make sure to leave an especially good tip before you and your bro exit the diner into the dry, hot Texas sun. It was just about noon, and the heat of the day which foreshadowed all sorts of glorious pleasantness for the upcoming drive.

You’d parked down the street a good distance away, under the shade of the single tree in the middle of what looked to be what passed as the town square—( Beautiful parking job. Nice and crooked. Three spaces. You feel so proud.)—in the vein hope that it might keep the inside a few degrees above boiling.

Your thoughts return to the waitress, Jane, and your own time in the food industry. As far back as you could remember it had been you and Dave. You took care of him, no matter where you were placed, you made sure that you were never separated, and you protected him. As soon as you were old enough and phased out of the system, you took him with you and became his legal guardian. It meant working three or four part time jobs at a time so he could finish school, but it was worth it. At least, that’s what you tell yourself. It had often been the cause of fights in the Strider household (and not the strifing kind). Dave didn’t see the point in finishing school because you hadn’t, and didn’t seem to understand that the only reason you _hadn’t_ was so that he _could._

Now the two of you spend most nights working the local clubs, spinning the tunes and working your Strider magic all over the turntables. You knew Dave was growing restless. You could sense it. He’d always been an active kid, full of energy. He’d learned to hide it well, but you still noticed it escaping in small ways. Finger tapping, leg jiggling. In some ways, you thought, he was like a restless puppy that needed more space to run around in. He’d never complained about the small apartment, and you knew he never would, but the thought still ate away at you.

Someday you’d get him that, you decided. A whole mansion large enough to strife in, with enough room for your puppets, and for him to do whatever the hell it was that he wanted to do. Collect dead animals or some shit.

Weird kid.

“Hey. Cowboy Sweatglands is back,” Dave said, and your eyes flicker over to see that he was correct, and— woulda ya look at that, he was wearing a wifebeater now. You had one very similar to it, though yours had a picture of an awesome hat on it. (You collect hats, though you never wear them. It would be criminal to do something like that to hair like yours.) You can appreciate a man who can rock a good sleeveless look.

You have to walk by him to get to the Bro-mobile anyway, so you indulge yourself in a quick intake of the ‘scenery’ before the inevitably long, hot ride back your abode. Maybe you’d feel better after filming a new puppet movie. Puppettimes were always funtimes.

This time he was filling the truck bed, grabbing a bag that must have weighed at least fifty pounds and lifting it to his shoulder with almost no effort, then tossing it up to ride with its brethren wherever the owner of Big Blue decided to go. His eyes were hidden behind cracked rectangular shades, and he kept to his work, either unaware that you were watching him, or unaffected.

Probably the former. The man was a workhorse, you mused, single-minded in his task. Probably the type to devote all of his energies to doing whatever was in front of him. Oh god you wanted to be the ‘whatever’ in front of him. Or behind him, feeling that broad back under your hands, run your hands down to feel his plu—

You notice his misstep before he does. His dirty work boot catches on a rock, causing him to lose balance and pitch forward. Bag on his shoulder, he was helpless to stop the fall, or even put a hand out to break the fall. In an instant you flashstepped over, putting one arm out to stop his fall, and the other to stabilize the bag.

He was even more attractive close up, you realize. Damn him. His skin and profile called to an Egyptian or possibly Arabic heritage. His black hair was long and silky, and probably as soft as the felt you used to sew your precious smuppets. That thought alone made you want to run your fingers through it, feel it sift between your fingers, find out what it felt like to grip in the throes of—

Uh… braid it completely platonically while watching My Little Pony. For ironic reasons. Like a tween girls sleepover. So above board, everyone else might as well be drowning in a sea of impropriety.

Nope, you can’t lie to yourself. You wanted to tap that booty in the least platonic way possibly. Hopefully numerous times.

You were way too invested already, and you didn’t even know the guy’s name. Hell, for all you knew, he could be one of the many cross wielding gun bearing ‘Burn the homos’ that the South was a notorious pit of. You hoped it was the complete opposite.

You hoped it very fucking much.

As quickly as you’d jumped over, like Mario rescuing your 6’5” (??) Peach from Bowsers clutches, you stepped back and let him catch his bearings. (Fucking hell he was tall. You weren’t short in the height department yourself, but upright he easily stood over you.) Your palms and forearms are a bit damp from second hand sweat, and you try to wipe them off as inconspicuously as possible. Dave had been standing a ways off, but it looks like he wandered off to go sit in the car, obviously having gotten tired of watching you watching him and not wanting to make a chain of creepy staring.

The large man blinked in surprise, shades slightly askew, realizing simultaneously that he wasn’t going to faceplant, and that you had helped (rescued) him.

“Ah,” he said, righting the lenses on his face, and wiping his forehead with the back of his free hand, while the other still held up the bag. You notice that he wears gloves almost identical to your strifing gloves. “It appears that I nearly deposited the contents of my sack all over the street. That would have been most unfortunate.”

Was… was this guy for real? If so, where had he been all of your life?

This was too rich.

“Thank you,” he was saying, and his tone was completely sincere as he gave you a solemn nod. He turned away to toss the bag into the pile.

Biting back your disappointment at what you took to be his short dismissal, you shrugged. “No big deal. I’m no hero, just a guy who doesn’t want to see a brother dump his load ‘all over the street.’” You couldn’t resist that much, anyway. Of course you really shouldn’t have expected anything else. The guy probably had a lot of work to do, and the idea that he’d stop everything just to swoon in your arms, chest heaving like a debutante, really was—

“Equius Zahhak,” he says, turning back around to face you fully. There is a palpable pause where it looks like he’s trying to make a decision. Whatever it was he obviously decided, and he stuck out a hand tentatively, almost nervously.

You take it, offering a nod. “Dirk Strider,” you say in return. He visibly relaxes, thick black eyebrows unfurrowing and face smoothing out. Equius’ grip is firm and strong, and he’s clearly restraining himself, like he could easily break every bone in your hand if he wasn’t. His fingers are broad and large under yours, and they reminded you inexplicably of a horse’s flat hoof. The palm is damp, but not slick like you’d expected, though you notice that it shook almost imperceptibly. Was he still freaked out?

Dave appeared by your shoulder as you let go. “My bro, Dave,” you say, not needing to turn to know that Dave nodded at the introduction. Even with the age and slight height gap, the two of you are remarkably similar in appearance, thought there are key differences. One of them being the Dave’s complete rejection of any type of hair product, leaving his blond hair flat and swishy, with the stubborn constant upflick of a cowlick at the back, whereas yours was styled to perfection every morning after your ablutions. Besides that and the difference of your sunglasses, (and aforementioned height, it really burned you that the little jackoff was nearly an inch taller when he had no right to be as the younger sibling,) and even _with_ them, some had mistaken you two for twins before.

Equius doesn’t seem taken aback by the two of you. “Pleased to meet you both,” the guy was so formal, god _damn_. Dress me up and take me to prom, Mr. Zahhak, my heart can’t handle it, you think. He would look nice in a formal setting, you figure. Take off those greasy oiled stained clothes, put him in a suit—no wait, just take off the clothes.

Down boy, you remind yourself. You were getting way too far ahead of yourself. And you really don’t need a replay of what happened the last time you came on too strong. Thinking of that was a good first stop on the train to Bonerkillerville.

What? You didn’t have a boner at all. That was just an example of—

You’re not explaining yourself to yourself. That’s not what is happening right now.

At that moment you realize that Equius was looking at you uncertainly, not sure what to expect. “You’re passing through,” he noted, as he turned to pick up another bag. Forgoing the pleasantries, you step up and take one yourself. (You were right about their weight. It was a good thing you work out as much as you do, otherwise you’d be having all kinds of issues right now.)

Dave joins you silently, and you make an unspoken assembly line. Dave hefts the bags from the curb, passes them to you, and you take them to Equius who tosses them into the steadily growing pile.

“Yup. Me and my bro are just passing through on our way back to Houston.”

He makes a humming noise of confirmation, and then falls silent again. It nearly takes a crowbar, but by the time you receive the last bag from your brother, you’ve found out a lot of things about Equius, five things of them being:

  1.        He works for a local ranch (Neverland Ranch, to be precise, and you love being precise) as the mechanic, fixing and tending to general upkeep and repairs when needed.
  2.        He studied robotics at one point, and still dabbles, but something (he didn’t say what,) made him change his major to more agricultural technological studies.
  3.        His family is indeed Arabic, and he lives in the shadow of his older brother, who is a sort of jack-of-all-trades.
  4.        He has a love of horses to rival your own. (Or, as he put it, “a… _strong_ affection for the noble beasts.)
  5.        He has a medical condition that causes him to sweat so much. (“Though, after treatments, it’s gotten much better.” You almost wish you could have seen what it was like _before_ treatments if this is after.)



This didn’t quite make your mental checklist, but he was reluctant to talk about his father’s occupation. (“Not quite suitable for a conversation topic at this time,” was all he would say. And hell, you weren’t going to pry.)

It was nice talking to someone who shared as many interests as you did. That didn’t happen very often. You reciprocate and told him a bit about yourself and your brother, you love of smuppets, strifing, rap music, the normal things every bro likes. Except Cal. You’d save him for later.

If... there will be a later?

He throws the last bag into the back and claps his hands together to brush off the dust. By this time you and Dave are as sweaty as he is, and you’re all coated in a fine layer of dirt. You grimace at the way it clings to your normally pristine white shirt. Not one to bitch and moan about things like that you suck it up and deal with it, Strider style.

“Mr. Strider.” Both you and Dave turn at the same time to look at him at the same time. “Erm, Dirk,” he amends, looking to where your eyes would be behind your shades. “Thank you for your assistance. Both of you. I owe you a debt.”

You shrug, casually lifting one shoulder. “Not a problem,” you intone. “Maybe if we were sticking around longer I could take advantage of that.”

Wow. Master wordsmith, you are. Now he thinks you’re a giant perv. Well, if he could have heard some of your thoughts earlier, he may not be too far off. Still.

Equius blinks at you, slight confusion playing across his face. “Uh, of course,” he says. “Well, if you ever wish to ‘cash in your debt’ sometime in your travels,” he’s offering you a rumpled scrap of paper, and you could swear that his face is darker, and (hopefully) not just from the heat. “My number,” he says, as if you needed the clarification.

You take it, one finger glancing over his thumb in the process, and he nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Yes, well, I have to return to my duties now. Farewell, Strider. Strider,” he says to both of you in turn, before practically leaping back into his truck. You watch him drive away and pocket the number, thoroughly satisfied. Looks like Equius and you might have more in common than you thought, and maybe he hadn’t missed the undertones in the conversation.

It could just be wishful thinking, sure, but like hell were you going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Ha. Ha. Horse puns. This is what you are reduced to. Shit, you need to get home and regain your Strider cool.

“Oh Mr. Strider, please take me now,” Dave warbles, somehow managing to nearly capture Equius’ rich, deep voice, make it squeak like a Japanese schoolgirl from one of your anime’s, and sound like a complete tool all at once.

You smack him upside the head on the way to the car. “You’re just jealous that the cowboy wasn’t interested in corralling your scrawny ass into the pasture.”

“Bro. That doesn’t even makes sense.”

“You can’t handle that I’m going to be the one to ride that pony off into the sunset.”

“Dirk you’re not a cowboy.”

“Yee haw, get along little doggies, get your asses in the Bro-mobile. This hot piece of ass needs a nice cold shower.”


	2. This is not a chapter so sorry

Okay this is not a chapter.  
I think this is fairly obvious.  
This is an open thingy for comments that I will take down in a few days. Basically, is anyone still interested/want me to continue? I was 1 day to posting the second chapter and then my computer crashed, and I lost everything. And then it took forever to get a new one, and then life happened and minor surgery and a new job and I could go on but I think you get the picture.  
I still have my notes and ideas and I am very much on the fence as to whether or not I will continue or just scrap it and move on.  
I just do not know.  
So yeah.


End file.
